Rebirth
by trufflemores
Summary: 2.20. Barry dies; Iris reels.
Barry's last words are _I'm okay, Iris_.

He tells her he's fine like he isn't dying in front of her, thrashing in pain and exhaling poison. The chamber is isolated, but it's painful to watch, twisting in Iris' gut until she wants to walk away from it. Her tolerance strains like his arms against their restraints, muscles bulging, face a rictus of pain. When she sees the tears on it, she wants to pound on the door until it shatters and free him, aware how thinly they're walking the line, aware that it's _killing him_.

Before they even turned it on, Wells' machine scared her. She hated the way the metal bullied bones into submission, clamping _down_ , locking him into place like a recalcitrant piece of machinery. _Be still_ became an order insurmountable by even the most desperate _don't hurt him_ , her mouth unmoving while her eyes told her _act now_.

With agonizing clarity, she knows that the plan won't work as the explosion barrels down the chamber. It's too strong. Barry wasn't at Star Labs, inside the particle accelerator, when it exploded. He was almost a mile away, on the top floor of CCPD, working on an assignment. Wells may have injected him with chemicals and recreated the lightning bolt, but he overdid it: the chemicals burned him, but they never reached more than skin-deep, and the lightning bolt was far, far less powerful.

The charge doesn't just kill him. Iris watches as it _destroys_ him, his mouth opening in a soundless scream as irradiated flesh flakes off into energy, every limb straining forward. The tattered remains of the suit fall as the explosive shockwave pushes ahead, tsunami-like, rolling over and through them before dissipating.

Ears ringing, Iris staggers forward. She can't look away, astounded, horrified. Staring at the machine, she thinks _we crucified him_. In her head, his dying words goes around and around: _I'm okay, Iris,_ like he's shushing himself to make it more bearable for her, like he won't scream to because it'll torture her, like he can swallow blood and bite his tongue to stop the pain. _I'm okay, Iris,_ like he's trying to drown a little more slowly, to put off hard truths a little longer, to make life as painless for her as he can. _I'm okay, Iris,_ like he is somehow prepared to die.

She is still staring at where Barry should be when Zoom Flashes into view. He picks up what's left of the suit, claws flexing. The astonishment and delight radiating from him in intense pulses makes her sick, but she doesn't think, _Barry's dead_. Instead, Iris sees Zoom holding Barry by the neck, shaking Barry in front of the cameras and letting the world know that _this man is no God_. It's easier for her to lock the door against reality, to relapse, to stop any new information from counter-intuiting the most unbreakable rule in her universe: _Barry can't die._

Zoom holds up the suit and Iris thinks, _Don't hurt him_ , like Barry is still in it. She thinks, _Don't hurt him_ , like he's coming back. She thinks, _Don't hurt him_ , like he can be saved.

Reality is unbearable.

"You thought you could give The Flash his Speed back?" Zoom sneers. Iris can't breathe for how loudly she wants to scream, an undirected, anguished howl that builds in her until she can barely contain it _._ Into the fractured silence, Zoom lauds in a triumphant growl, "Well done. You killed him instead."

Then Zoom Flashes out of sight.

Before anyone can speak, her dad puts a gun on Wells. Henry says, "Don't" in a low, broken tone, animal-like, wounded, as her dad's hand trembles, his expression so steely it could crack bone. "Joe," Henry adds seriously. With bite, he finishes, "God dammit, you're a _cop_. Put the gun down."

"I should shoot you," her dad says, Henry's comments forgotten. Tears stream down his face, gun trembling, Wells' gaze fixed forward. "I swear to God."

"Joe," Henry repeats.

"You killed Barry," he says, throat so choked he can barely force the words out, screaming it in his face: " _You killed my son!_ " The gun falls and his hand settles over his mouth, strangling in his grief, turning away from Wells as he sobs, pressing a fist against the wall and weeping.

Henry doesn't say a word, immovable, expressionless, at last staggering forward with painful, aggravated steps towards the empty platform. He doesn't speak to any of them, reaching up to try and undo the clasps. They're machine-operated, but he's frantic, banging up his elbows, struggling in wordless derailment to get it open.

Wells does the honors quietly, wordlessly, belatedly, and Henry falls to his knees. Picks up the suit. Says in an almost hysterical tone, "Oh my God."

Cisco tells her, "He's not—" and there's a choking quality to it, not just hurt but _hurting_ , actively in pain, make-it-stop. "He's – it's – it's not." He pushes both hands into his hair, pulling at it. "He's not – he's –"

Wells walks away. No one else moves.

Sometime later, Dante arrives. He takes one look at Cisco and asks in a hushed voice, " _What happened?_ " Takes him by the arm, pulling him gently aside, repeating the same query in Spanish.

Iris' phone buzzes with a metahuman update.

It's already on the news.

" _The Flash is dead_ ," Zoom announces. Iris thinks, _We have to tell Caitlin_ , but she already knows. She thinks, _Caitlin can fix it_ , but she can't. She thinks, _Caitlin, get here as fast as you can,_ as if they aren't already out of time. "The days of other _speedsters_ are over. This world is mine."

Iris' blog is overflowing with messages, frantic, terrified, concerned. She doesn't click on them. Her feed is pages deep in speculative articles already proclaiming the worst. She doesn't click on those, either. Instead, she puts her phone away, looking at her dad, at Henry, at the tattered remains of Barry's suit, and feels the same anguished wailing build, build, build in her until she has the suit in her hands, his suit, _Barry's suit_ , and there is no warmth to it.

It's cold, corpse-like.

With silent horror, she presses her face against it and sobs into the memory of his skin.

. o .

Eddie died and the world slowed down. Relevance bled out of formerly relevant tasks: suddenly going to work didn't seem worthwhile when all it did was remind her of Eddie. Stopping by the precinct was even worse, so she drifted away from Barry and her dad. That was okay: they drifted away from her, too, processing in their own ways. She skipped routines and created new, disorganized, spontaneous ones: eating less, sleeping more, doing meaningless tasks for hours and accomplishing less than nothing for her job. Getting coffee lost its flavor for a time, a chore rather than an inclination, but it's an excuse to live so she gets it.

When Barry dies, the world stops.

. o .

Singh asks, "Where's Allen?" and her dad says _sick_ like he has to, sick like he's not dead, sick like everything's going to be okay. "Not what I need right now," Singh quips.

Delilah-the-barista asks, "Where's your shadow?" and Iris echoes _sick_ like she has to, sick like he's not dead, sick like everything's going to be okay. "That's a shame. He's cute," Delilah-the-barista laments.

Linda asks, "Where's Barry?" and Iris echoes _sick_ like she has to, sick like he's not dead.

Patty asks, "Where Barry?" and Iris echoes _sick_ like she has to.

Felicity asks, "Where's Barry?" and Iris echoes _sick_.

That night, exactly twelve hours, fourteen minutes, and thirty-nine seconds after Barry – After Barry – Oliver shows up at Star Labs. He walks into the cortex with the same familiarly confident stride, a chip in his shoulder, bow on back, a rasp in his voice. He looks at all of them: Wells, Henry, Cisco, Dad. He looks at her. He asks, "Where's Barry?"

Cisco looks up from the tattered suit in his hands for the first time in an hour. In a voice devoid of living, he explains softly, "Barry's dead."

Oliver says, "No."

Her dad lets out a growl that might be a _fuck you_ on a more ambitious day. It's not directed at Oliver. It's not directed at anyone, except God, except Speed Force, except existence itself. He does not give it true voice, but Oliver hears it and looks at him.

Wells turns, putting his back to them. "I'm going to check on my daughter," he says stiffly, hurt, hurting. _And Wally_ goes unspoken.

Iris needs to care more. She does. But somehow leaving Barry's suit out of sight is beyond her, and Cisco has it, and he will not let it go. It's okay – Barry is safe with Cisco, she remembers high-fives and giggling laughs that carry from downstairs and the way they geek out together over coffee and moves, he's _safe_ with Cisco, Cisco saved his life with Caitlin on countless occasions – but it's also volatile, and breakable, and too terrifying to ignore the potentiality for reality to intrude.

 _Keep him safe_ , Iris tells Cisco with a hand on his shoulder. _Keep him safe_.

Oliver says, "Show him to me."

In response, Cisco holds up the suit.

Oliver stares at it. He stares at it so long Iris wants to take it into her own arms, cradle it, hide it from view. Like it's sacred. Like it's Something. Like it's _sick_ and not-dead.

She does nothing.

After a long, silent moment, Oliver clears his throat. Grunts. Presses both fists to his eyes. Says once, very emphatically, " _Fuck_."

Like he's dead and not sick.

. o .

For two days Barry stays underground, entombed.

On the third day, Cisco gets a vision, like a dream. He tells them, _I saw Barry_ and there is a hopeful, crushingly hopeful corner of Iris' mind that wants to _believe_. He says, _I think he's on another Earth_. He says, _Barry's alive_.

Hope falters when Wells says, "There are an infinite number of Earths, Ramon. What you're seeing is what you want to see. Another Barry." Clicking the gun into place – a plasma gun he does not put down – he says simply, "Our Barry is dead. It's not him."

He walks out.

Jesse and Wally still haven't woken up.

. o .

A week, and the visions increase.

 _I see him_ , Cisco says, and hushed, prophetic, they sit in a tight circle, Joe, Iris, Cisco, trying to determine where Barry is while Wells digs deeper and deeper and deeper into denial, like he needs to believe it or he will die from the pain.

 _I see Barry_ , Cisco says, and with unwavering attention to detail he describes the visions. He describes everything: the clothes Barry wears, the decorations in the single room Cisco has seen him in, the time of day, the perplexing arrhythmic quality to his movements. Iris thinks, _He's not our Barry_ but she hungers for him anyway. She thinks, _Barry is dead_ but she hungers for him anyway. She thinks, _He can't change this_ but she hungers for him anyway.

She hungers a lot, lately, but she can't eat. And Cisco's visions are scarce.

 _I see him_ , Cisco insists. _I see Barry_.

Iris waits, and waits, and waits, needing to see Barry again, too. Craving Cisco's powers. Craving Barry's presence. Craving what it is to feel warm, to feel alive, to feel _okay_ again.

A week passes.

Wally and Jesse still haven't woken up.

. o .

On the ninth day, Cisco is holding onto the suit when he spontaneously Vibes.

There are tears on his face when he opens his eyes again. "I know what Earth he's on," he says, breathless, amazed. "It's far – outer reaches – but if we could just –"

"Ramon," Wells interrupts. "He's dead. That's not our Barry."

Cisco doesn't listen. He just holds onto the suit, closes his eyes, and lets the terror guide him back to that Other World.

. o .

On the twelfth day, they open a portal.

They have no choice: Zoom killed another officer yesterday. _Make a point_. Even with Oliver's team providing all of the support it can, the influx of metahumans is overwhelming. Zoom's reign of terror continues, unabated.

Time is out.

 _He's not your Barry_ , Wells says. _Barry is dead_.

But he does not stop them. He sits back, keeping watch, and her dad says, "Be careful" as Cisco nods, clasps his shoulder, and promises to come home.

Then her dad hugs her and Iris holds onto him, knowing that if things go south she'll never come home but not fearing it. The alternative is acceptance. And she will not live in a world without Barry.

Hand-in-hand, Cisco and she pass through the portal, leaving behind Central City and Earth-1 and entering Earth-52.

. o .

When she finds Barry sitting in his old lab, he turns to look at her and he doesn't look like Barry. He looks like The Flash: glowing, Aphroditic. Warm. Familiar. All smiles. The in-case-of-emergency lie about being interns dies in Iris' throat as she steps towards him. She knows that smile. She knows him.

When he hugs her, she feels the deeply resonant energy under his skin. She feels it like she's never felt it before: alive, real. _Immediate_. Like it is more present than he is: like it has somehow fused with him, evaporating the distinction between her best friend, her sweet, sunshiny geek and the force of nature which rockets up the sides of buildings and travels hundreds of miles per hour. It is like they are both there at once: like Barry is no longer Barry but only The Flash. Full-time.

He buries his nose in her hair. She clings to his back, hands flat on his shoulders, needing. Shaking with the force of her emotion because he's _here_. He's here. He's here.

And when he says, " _Iris_ " she knows that it's not The Flash, it's not the superhero, it's not the Speed Force.

It's Barry.

 _Her_ Barry.

"I'm okay," he tells her, holding her, rocking them lightly, suffused with that energy but entirely apart from it, familiar, hers, something Before and After The Flash but fuller with it. "I'm okay, Iris."

Without letting go, she steps back. She looks up at him, thumbs tracing circles against his cheekbones, scarcely daring to believe it. Because she can't, she leans up and kisses him. They're both crying, but as it sinks in she laughs a little against his lips, breathless, stunned, overwhelmed with the force of her own relief.

"I missed you so much," she says, kissing his lips, his jaw, his cheeks, cradling his face to kiss his forehead, too. "I missed you. I missed you." He kisses her, interrupting, but she still says it, brushing her thumbs along his cheekbones, needing to know he's there. "I missed you. I missed you."

"It's okay," he whispers. "I'm okay, Iris."

Pulling her into a hug, tucking her up against him, keeping her safe, he says, "I can't believe you're here."

"You died, Barry," Iris says, holding onto his shirt, dizzied, overwhelmed, stunned at the heartbeat under her ear. "I watched you die—"

"I know."

There's a strange gravity to his voice, like – like it wasn't a trick. An illusion. A mistake. Like he was dead.

"I watched you die," she repeats.

Rubbing his thumbs along her elbows, he implores softly, "Iris."

She buries her face against his shoulder, silent, listening. Rejoicing in the steady thump of his too-fast heartrate. "It's beating really fast," she observes.

"It's still beating," he replies simply.

And so it is.

. o .

When Cisco finds them, he hugs Barry for almost twenty minutes.

Iris stays close enough to grab onto Barry's shirt the second Cisco lets go, to anchor herself to him, to find peace in his tangibility. She stays close so she can catch every word that should-not-be, _you died_ , and so she can savor every inhale, every exhale, every heartbeat. She stays close so she doesn't lose him again, so no one hurts him, so nothing takes him away.

She stays close, but she needn't worry. He stays in reach. He stays nearby. He stays in her life, now, and in every echo of Speed in him, a tangible, readable emotion, he promises, _I'm not leaving you_.

The Earths vibrate at different frequencies, making their placement in space identical, but for Iris, home isn't Earth-1: it's here, with Barry, on Earth-52.

. o .

Back on Earth-1, Barry is tired – "dimension-lag" – but he stays up all night answering questions, reassuring them, being with them. He stays up all night with Wally and Jesse, still comatose, quietly pondering. He stays up all night with Iris in arm's reach, occasionally with that flash of lightning appearing in his eyes unprompted, a warm smile in place.

When the sun finally rises, he hugs them again, promises to be back by noon, and goes home with her and her dad.

They don't say much, but the house isn't silent anymore, deafening, defeatist: it's quiet, warm, companionable, a kind of wordlessness punctuated not with conversation but with movements, with certainties, with a world back on its axis.

But not all is fully well, and she senses it even as she tiredly strips out of her day clothes – twenty-seven hours old – and into a pair of pajamas. Barry's fatigue is obvious, but he paces, picking up mugs and holding them in his hands, running the tap just to put his hand under the scalding stream, trying to wake up, to reorient.

He acted the same way after time-traveling: disoriented, off-rhythm, skipping routines not out of negligence but dissociation, like they're not his. So when he goes to refold his clothes, she grabs him by the sleeve. Takes him to the couch. Sits down, pulling him down beside her.

She says, "It's okay," and he lies down, legs hooked over the arm of the couch, lanky and lean and long. "You're okay," as he puts his head on her thigh, looking up, quietly watching her, hungering for nothing more than _presence_. Hand in his hair, Iris finishes, "We're okay."

It's three o'clock in the afternoon before either of them wake up, tangled on the couch.

. o .

Oliver threatens to break a rib with the force of his hug. Felicity smacks him before hugging him, twice. Patty calls him and they have a soft, earnest conversation that Iris doesn't listen in on, a certain satisfaction emitting from Barry as he finally hangs up, the burning bridge doused. Linda wants to go out for coffee to celebrate Barry's return to good health. Delilah-the-barista gives them free coffee. And Singh says, "About time, Allen" as he hands him a stack of folders.

Iris can't let him out of her sight, but Barry doesn't mind, staying close, staying quiet, but not moving under the radar. His confidence surprises her, but she doesn't question it. She trusts that other presence, that powerful, moving, warm presence working alongside him. If it's there, then they can't fail.

The Flash is back. And Barry is back with it.

. o .

It's not like old times. Public spaces are still unsafe. Even with Wally and Jesse awake, something is _off_ about them, and Barry keeps gravitating towards them, agitated, excited, talking in a blur that neither of them have trouble comprehending even though Iris is left utterly in the dark. Wells doesn't say a word to Barry even though Barry's soft, "Harry, it's fine" forgives him. Henry stays around, renting an apartment. Needing proximity.

Iris understands that, because even if it isn't like old times, being around Barry again helps instill a sense of normalcy. Even with Zoom's presence in the city, it feels _safer_ with The Flash. He exudes positive energy. He also broadcasts his presence unapologetically, suited up, seeming stronger, steel-like, unbreakable, as though conquering death helped him conquer Zoom, too.

And though they don't have a plan – they don't even know how to stop Zoom – Iris trusts the future.

She trusts the cohesiveness of their team. She trusts them.

She trusts Barry.

And he honors that trust by coming home again.


End file.
